ISLAND MURDERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14379, 24 November 1908, Page 5

ISLAND MURDERS

| •MASSACRE OF THE GREIG FAMILY. PUNITIVE FORCE AT WOBK. PrMS Auociation-By Tclejriph-CopyriEHt. -SYDNEY, November 23. The punitive expedition to punish the murderers of the Groig family in the New Hebrides consisted of the native police and an armed party from H.M.S. Prometheus. The expedition surprised the village tribe that was concerned in the murder. The inhabitants made a dash for the hills, but the native police fired. Six women and a child were shot. When the mail left the party was still in pursuit. The names of the victims were Peter o.' Greig.and his two daughters, Ada- Joyce Grc k (aged 18 years) and Elizabeth Marian Groig (aged 16 years). Mr Groig, who was a native- of Sydney' owned a property of about 500 acres near Baldwins Cove, on the south coast of Kspirim Santo, lip engaged principally in maizo and cocoa-nut planting, but also had a small quantity of stores, which ho traded with the natives for copra. On the afternoon of that dalo (October 7) he left the house to visit an outlying part of the plantation with his two daughters, returning about 4 o'clock for tea. On approaching the home he saw six kanakas in a bamboo shed near by which was used for storing maize and copra. It. is considered ri-obablc that he thought at first they had come simply to trade and advanced unlioedingly with his daughters. When within a few feet he discovered his mistake, but it was then too late. The savages rushed upon him, and Mr Groig mc, killed instantaneously by the blow of an axe on the heed. Hie elder girl tried to ward oft' the blows, and her right arm was found almost geveyed, while there were two frightful cuts on the body.' She was at last killed, as her father had boon, by a blow on the head. The- second daughter was killed by a rifle bullet, ■which pawed thiough the head. The murderers then smashed all the fittings m tho house and fled into the bush. About an hour and a-hnlf later Alexander, the son of Mr Groig, a boy of 14 came home from another part of tho plantation and discovered the bodies. He stayed at the house duriwr tho night, however, and it was only at 8 o'clock next 'jnorninjr that ho went for assistance to t.h«> nearest settlement, which was the English mission station at Tongoa Island. So far as thov could see, nothing had been stolen by t-lin kanakas, and the onlv explanation for the murder is that it was committed for revenge. It is said that for some tune past, Mr Greig had been threatened, but had refused to take any precautions.